Breathe Again
by LukeAndLorelai Brucas Fan
Summary: “Maybe one day I’ll be gone. What would you do then, huh?” Anna demanded. Well, Pete's about to find out. Sorry. I was watching season 3 opener last night. I'm sure this has been done already, but I couldn't help it. Pete/Anna, their last night.


I am still working on A Change... I just got distracted because Private Practice came back last night, and although I'd cheated and made sure Violet was still going to be on the show in the following episodes it was still a very big deal. But anyway, I couldn't get Pete's therapy sessions out of my head (probably because Lorelai and I should both be in therapy about four hours a day, but what are you gonna do?) until after I had written this. Now I should be able to get back to what I should be writing.

Disclaimer: Haven' done one of these in a while, but still, I think we all know whre I'm going with this. I own... nada!

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When the alarm sounded, he rolled onto his side, covering his head with a pillow.

He didn't have to go to work this morning, his first appointment wasn't until after lunch, so that mustn't have been his alarm. _Anna can turn it off._ He thought. _Anna… Bitch._

But she didn't.

Anna's alarm continued blaring, getting louder and louder as Dr. Pete Wilder tried to bury his head further into the pillows. When the sound wouldn't stop he finally sat up and reached over his wife to turn off the offending object.

"Can't you hear that?" he asked the sleeping figure beside him. "That means it's time to wake up Anna. Your alarm goes off, you wake up. Surely you'd know that by now. I wanted to sleep in today, but I guess that's not happening now. Thanks a lot."

Climbing out of the bed, he stomped towards the bathroom and opened the cabinet to find his toothbrush and searched through the drawer for a new tube of toothpaste. Anna had finished off the other one the night before and not bothered to replace it because she was pissed at him.

"I might as well go into the office now, since I'm up. Get through some paper work." Glancing back into the bedroom, Pete noticed that his wife still hadn't moved. He glared at her for a moment before turning back to the sink and turning on the tap.

"So you're just going to ignore me today, is that the plan? You're going to be a bitch, pretend that I'm not here; I'm not speaking to you? Well that's just great. Real nice, Anna."

Anna hated it when he ran the water while brushing his teeth, a waste of water, she said. But today he just didn't give a crap. He turned the water up full blast and watched as it swirled around the basin before rushing down the drain.

"Are you ever going to come out of there and face me?" he demanded, stomping back into the bedroom. "No, you'll just lie under there until I leave then you'll get up, go about your leisurely routine. No rush right? Well I've got news for you Anna; I'm not leaving here until you talk to me."

Still no response.

Pete stood at the end of the bed, glowering. _I'm not going to take this,_ he thought. _Not after what she said to me last night._

-

"_God, you're such a… I can't stand this! I hate you!" she had yelled, yanking a cushion off of the bed and throwing it roughly towards a chair sitting in the corner._

"_You hate me? Yeah, well, the feelings mutual, babe." He replied, seething, tearing back the sheets on his side of the bed._

"_I don't know why I put up with this… Why I put up with you." She said, shaking her head. She gathered her dark hair up into a loose pony tale_

"_Well, I've got an easy solution for you Anna." Pete shot back at his wife. "You know where the door is."_

"_You know what? Maybe I will go." she responded, sitting down and picking up her alarm clock, setting it for the following morning. "Maybe one day you'll come home from your precious practice and I'll be gone. What would you do then, huh?"_

"_Throw a party, probably." Pete couldn't help feeling satisfied at the look on her face at that comment. "You want to test it out now? See how the whole thing plays out, maybe you'll have a few suggestions about how I should act when I see all your stuff gone."_

"_I hate you!" Anna yelled again. She turned off her light so furiously that the lamp almost fell over on the night stand. Pete glared into the darkness for a moment before turning onto his side and going to sleep._

_-_

"Wake up, God damn it!" Pete yelled, ripping the covers back.

Anna still didn't move. She lay completely still and Pete realized that in all the time he'd been up and shouting at her, she hadn't once shifted positions.

And there was the slightest tinge of blue to her skin.

"Anna?" Nothing. "Anna, wake up. Get up!" _Please._ "Anna I'm not kidding around here; open your eyes!"

Still, as Pete stood there, waiting for a response, any response, nothing happened and he knew that nothing would. His hand had brushed against her for just a second when he was pulling away the sheets. She was cold.

Her skin was cold and turning blue and she hadn't moved.

He knew without having to check that she no longer had a pulse. And she would never again have a chance to tell him that she hated him. Or hear him say it back.

Sinking into the chair by the bed, on top of the cushion that had been tossed there the night before, Pete felt a breath he hadn't known he was holding release. A pressure he couldn't quite identify disappeared from his chest and he finally felt as if this was what breathing was supposed to feel like. Whatever he had been doing the last few years, wasn't right.

This was breathing.

"Anna?" he could hear a voice calling out to her, unaware that he was doing it. "Anna, can you hear me?" But still nothing happened and with every passing second he felt it get easier and easier.

_She's gone and now I can breathe again._

_I'm finally free._

FIN

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_Yeah, well, ok. That's it. All done now. Reviews?_


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